


Plant a Flower in the Snow

by The Chronicler (AgentFrostbite)



Series: Hurting is Part of Healing [3]
Category: Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: And they're both stitching their hearts together again, Bad at feelings yes, Canon What Canon, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Emotions are messy and people make mistakes, F/M, Female Tony Stark, Found Family, Gen, No One Here Is A Bad Guy, Steve Rogers Has A Heart Too, Team as Family, The Avengers are stubborn and their love their team, Tony Stark Has A Heart, don't know her, fem!tony/steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:20:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25148359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentFrostbite/pseuds/The%20Chronicler
Summary: Toni knew the day would come. Steve's a ghost she can't shake, can't ignore, refuses to let go. It's been six months of hurting and healing, of finding her ground after it was ripped from under her, and now she stands there, staring him in the face, neither of them sure who showed up first or what to do now that they can say everything they want to say.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Hurting is Part of Healing [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1695832
Kudos: 55





	Plant a Flower in the Snow

Toni knows that Clint isn't going to be the only one. She just doesn't expect it to cascade the way it does.

Rhodey has been back and forth as often as he could be, and if anyone gets prickly with him about it, he just gestures at the braces. That tends to shut people up. She had JARVIS send a message forward that he isn't to come see her before two months pass because she needs to recover, and recovery means she needs to know who she is as a lone person. Obviously, he ignores that, and she lets him because she needs him and they both know it. He holds her through that crappy first month, propping her up as much as she lets him, and they're both stronger for it.

Clint brings the bots back two months in, and she cries with her babies. He's decent enough to make himself scarce till she pulls herself back together, and when he returns with two lemonades of completely unknown origin, she shrugs off the worry about holding distance between herself and the team and chills with him on the couch that she moved into the garage because sleeping on the creeper is uncomfortable and she did learn a few things from her time at the Tower.

"We all miss you," he remarks neutrally. "For more than the tech support."

"I miss everyone, too," she whispers in a cracking voice.

She can see the memories when she closes her eyes – Nat and Toni sparring, Toni and Bruce and Hank on an inventing spree, Jan flipping through Toni's closet with endless remarks about complimentary colors, Toni and Rhodey flying side by side in nearly matching suits, Toni getting Wanda and Pietro to come out of their shells with dad jokes and terrible puns, Toni and Vision putting JARVIS back together with extra protocols, Toni and Steve in _love_ – and she replays them as often as she can, now that she doesn't cry when she sees them.

"God, do I miss them," she admits again, opting for truth because it'll hurt less in the long run - another thing she learned from being an Avenger.

"No-one's gonna ask you to come back," he says, "but maybe I can send a few people your way." There's a pause, and it's long, stuffed with things neither of them knows how to say, and it basically amounts to wishing it was last year instead of this year, because then the mess wouldn't have happened and they could just be friends chilling on the couch rather than maybe-enemies avoiding the elephant in the room. "If you want."

"You been taking lessons from Rhodey," she replies, leaning back and sipping the lemonade. It's Steve's recipe; Clint must've hidden some of the packets in the cupboards or something. He's always stashed food everywhere. "Yeah," she finally says. "That'd be nice. _Slowly_. No soldiers." It's not really necessary to add that last bit, but she feels like she needs to. He's the kind of person who regularly pulls of 'No-one _told_ me I couldn't.'

She is shocked when Wanda and Pietro are the first ones to show up, three weeks later, even more so when Wanda gently hugs Toni.

"We stole a movie," Pietro says, holding up something from Indiana Jones, "in case you forgot to hook up your Netflix or something."

She smiles a watery smile, bites her lip and _refuses_ to cry, and settles on the couch with them. It's nice, a vestige of what she used to have, and while it stings, it's a balm for her aching, throbbing heart. They're still her friends, no matter their differences.

It's another couple weeks of quiet before Sam, Nat, and Clint crash her pad. They're exhausted and they've obviously just come back from some kind of mission, maybe SHIELD, and honestly, Toni's coming back from a walk when she sees them. Clint's holding a thing of gauze with his teeth, Sam's pressing an ice pack to the side of his face, and Natasha's rolling a reset shoulder.

Nat, unsurprisingly, is the one who speaks, in that typical 'go ahead and screw with me' deadpan. "Knew we were coming."

"You get out clean?" Toni asks, and this, too, stings, how easily she slips back into the team mentality. She forces herself to hold onto the seriousness but abandon the reliance on others. Friends is one thing, teammates is another, and she has to be her own person before she can consider letting herself get close like that again.

"Uh-huh," Clint answers. Toni steps in to help him wrap his leg and his arm, and then supervises his bandage usage while attending to Sam's sprained ankle and Nat's swollen shoulder. They order pizza and fall asleep to the History Channel, and it's just like the old days, except the room is emptier and smaller and Toni feels almost sick with the grief. It'll get better after they leave, but she won't make them go. She never does.

They comes in waves after that. It'll be a few weeks of nothing, then a week of everyone dropping by with mostly honest excuses. Like, yeah, her mansion is close, but the SHIELD base or the airport or whatever is technically closer. And yes, she keeps a well-stocked cabinet and knows the team's preferences, but they order out half the time. It's nice to know she's wanted, loved even, and that her team keeps coming back for her, silently supporting her and keeping her up to date on the two members of the team whose names aren't uttered under her roof, because they know that she cares even though it hurts.

So it's six months and multiple visits from everyone before Steve Rogers finally shows up on her doorstep.

He looks…better, if not exactly the same. He's in casual clothes, the kind that's just his size because he stopped wearing tight things when she told him that he'd always have a safe place at her Tower – it was either meant to simulate a hug or to distract by having constant touch awareness, but she never asked and now she might not get to – but he's without the ballcap. He does have flowers, some pretty and delicate-looking orange kind in an actual pot because Toni's had enough dead roses and picked, store bought flowers to last a lifetime and he knows how she likes making things _live_.

She wants to shut him out as much as she wants to let him in, so all she does is stand there coolly until he gathers the courage or stupidity to say, "I shouldn't have lied to you."

"Damn right," she snaps coldly.

It's an odd sort of sensation. Half of her is there, in the moment, responding to him, and half of her is floating above, watching the whole thing play out. The worst bit is that she's pretty sure it's the Angel of Death talking to him and Toni floating above them, and if the former gets the full conversation, she'll push him away forever. She's still bitter and sore, the wound rubbed raw just from the sight of him, but they were too close, too authentic, for her to cut the tie completely. There's still a traitorous part of her that wants back what they had.

"I didn't know what else to do," he defends brokenly.

On a level, she understands it; it was his girlfriend or best friend. On a level, it's his fault; he should've trusted her enough with the information. On a different level, it's really her fault; if Steve didn't trust her, it's because she failed to show him that he could. She has never wrapped herself in plush things or bubble wrap, so it's either a disconnect of understanding or of trust. He understands her enough that she feels confident in saying that it's not a misunderstanding.

"That's not an excuse, Rogers," she replies. "You know it."

He opens his mouth a time or two, like he wants to argue, but settles on silence and hands her the flowers. "If nothing else."

She looks at them, these fragile, living fragments of what they used to be, and as soon as she takes them, he runs. She wonders if that's all they'll ever be: flowers between two former lovers, two broken hearts that lack the pieces to stitch themselves together again.

* * *

The tide of Avengers has stemmed once again, and Toni is left to contemplate and heal. She seriously considers giving the flowers away, but something in her can't bear to do that. He might've walked away, but she did too. She puts them on the windowsill in the kitchen and waters them once a day. They thrive in a way that she and Steve haven't since before Ultron. Sure, post-Ultron, they were better at leaning on each other, but there was never that innocent trust, that assumption that whatever was bothering them would be told.

It's two weeks before she hears from anyone again, and when she does, it's Rhodey. They both know that she knows that this is a carefully planned way of keeping Toni happy, making sure the rebuilding relationship between her and the team doesn't sour again. They both let it be and watch Mystery Science Theater 3000 with popcorn and cheap beer.

Every morning, she stumbles to the kitchen, sees the flowers, and thinks of Steve. It's three more weeks before she breaks down and calls the Tower. People have been coming and going, but she needs to hear his voice, almost as badly as she needs to breathe, but she has to do it on her terms. It rings three times, and Sam picks it up. "Hey, Toni."

"Freakin' caller ID…" she mutters good-naturedly. "How's it going, Sam?"

"Pretty good," he answers. "Busy as ever. Team's big enough to bust into groups."

"You guys pull straws for positions?" she asks. She almost wishes for those old corded telephones, so she could twirl the cord around her finger like she used to do. It might alleviate some of the nervousness she's feeling right now.

"Somethin' like that," he replies. "Still working yourself to death over there?"

"Not as much as I used to." She pauses and smiles. "The babies miss the Tower," she adds forlornly. "I'm tempted to send them back with Clint to visit. It'll break my heart to see them go."

"If we send a postcard and they start crying, will you feel as bad when they leave?" It's a nice joke, and it reminds her of the good ol' days. She laughs, though it's tinged with sadness.

"Maybe," she admits. "Hey, I'm sure you're busy, but…" She grips the phone hard enough to almost break it. "When you see Steve, tell him… Tell him the flowers are blooming nicely."

"I'll do that," Sam replies with an audible note of relief. "You take care of yourself, Toni."

"Says the Avenger," she retorts. "Fly safe, Sam." She hangs up and sighs heavily.

_Plant a flower in the snow, if you want to see what it's made of_

_Pretty flowers, ones with shallow roots and no tolerance for the cold, will wilt_

_Strong flowers, the tough and wild kind, will swallow the challenge and thrive_

_Love is like flowers; if it can handle the cold, it's too strong to die on its own_


End file.
